Slaunyeh

A game that has to recreate Superman as an ice tanker is not a very well designed game.

Oh did they? That's too bad.

I've done it for Templar and Illuminati. I really like how the three factions essentially get the same story, but at different points in the overall story. Your actions as a Templar directly affect the mission the Illuminati get (the Illuminati show up at the parking garage last, after the show is essentially over.)

And yeah, the use of illumination is really well done. There are a couple of future missions that send you into darkness as well, very creepy. Speaking of which, remember to hang on to the head lamp you get from this mission! It will come in handy later.

Crafting can be safely ignored for a good while, if you'd rather not think about it. And you don't have to worry about skill synergy unless enemies start to really kick your *** (which is usually around Savage Coast or, in particular, the beginning of Blue Mountain).

As long as you're not feeling overwhelmed, you should be fine. If you are, there's probably a lot you can tweak.

And that is one awesome trenchcoat, wish my lady would get anything similar.

That depends a lot on playstyle. Do you like your current build? Do you feel you are missing something? Then you might start looking into the outer wheel skills for shotgun and assault rifle to see if there's anything that would support your current build, or cover a weakness in your current build.

Or, if you're tired of it you could start digging into something else that sounds interesting. Personally, I think you can't do wrong with starting off with unlocking all inner-wheel skills for all weapons. There are some really nice stuff in the outer wheel, but it's not essential for a solid build through most of the game, and later you will earn enough AP that starting on those skills doesn't feel like such a huge deal. Also, you get a snazzy chest piece. But, again, depend on what you hope to get out of it.

I was originally running chaos/shotgun, and felt I was lacking a solid AoE finisher, so I went deep into shotgun for the Shotgun Wedding skill, which is an absolute riot.

You don't have to, you can team cross-faction no problem. The things that faction determine right now is PvP (you can only fight for your own side) and guild memberships (you can't have cross-faction guilds at this point). If either of those are important to you, you might want to consider joining the same faction. Otherwise, you'll be fine.

To be honest, I didn't really see either of those in your post. Just a snap decision based on gameplay videos. From the first half of your post, I assumed you based your opinion on actual experience, which would be fair. But the other half stated otherwise.

There's a free three-day trial if you feel like being brutally honest about your own experience.

That's some pretty harsh words from someone who hasn't even tried it. That you don't feel motivated to try it is fine, but I don't get why you felt the need to tell us about how horrible a game you haven't tried might be.

But hey, reviews of TSW have ranged from a 40 to a 90, so I get that some people instinctively hate it. Your princess may be in another castle.

Great read, thanks for sharing.

Some of the draugr will chase you forever, which is probably a bug (I've had a pair of sea witches chase me from the beach to the MorningLight camp, once). I haven't experienced that with townie zombies though.

There used to be an issue with the Ak'ab as well, that would chase you endlessly. But this was actually caused by another bug... once you aggroed an Ak'ab, it had to trigger it's charge first attack on you, which somehow overrode the leach distance (technically, I don't think mobs have leach distances in TSW, it's some other mechanic). Which meant that an Ak'ab would chase you clear across the Savage Coast, hit you once, and then leach back (unless you attacked it back, or someone else hit it on the way in which case you could end up fighting it).

On top of long aggro range, and a fondness for eachother's company, this made Ak'ab a bit of a pain (especially if you just needed to cross through their lands). Thankfully they aren't terrible difficult to fight, and they will teach you to use that dodge, too!

I remember a similar bug in CoV, too, for that matter. There was an issue where street mobs would never lose aggro. Poor hellions chased me from one end of Port Oakes to the other, and then back again.

I don't know how you could possibly conclude that from the video.

Yes, I belive TSW has a three-day trial. There aren't separate EU/US servers, you're billed according to your billing address, I think.

I don't see how you can make that claim, considering that the only NCSoft employee you've ever met has done all of the above.

*tinfoils*

I think that's a UK issue more than an EU issue? Far as I know, TSW is, what, €15/mo? Which sounds like the same as every other game I've paid attention to.

I like SWtOR. I want to love it, but I can only really like it. The two things that get me are:

1) Too traditional. It really plays like every other MMO ever made. Honestly, I'm a bit tired of the WoW-esque mechanics. When you start up a brand new game for the first time, and instinctively know how everything works, down to the formula that calculates your derived stats... that's just boring, IMHO.

2) Too story driven. I like story. I really, really like story. I play games almost exclusively for the story. And yet... SWtOR is "too story driven". How does that even make sense? It does, because there's one thing that's more important than story, to me, in an MMO: The ability to create your own character. That's where the long-term appeal of an MMO comes in, for me. Most MMOs fail in this regard in some way or another. SWtOR is so story-driven that it soon becomes obvious that you're not playing your character. You are playing the character belonging to a writer at Bioware. That might not have gotten to me in KotOR, but it certainly get to me in SWtOR.

It's not a bad game, in itself. It's actually a very good WoW-like game. It may even be better than WoW. But, in the end, I just don't really want to play WoW. Whether it has lightsabers or not.

I'd still have to team with someone on Huldra in order to join them on the Huldra dimension. I can't make that transition on my own.

As far as I know, anyway.

Looks like I will have to put on my social-hat and find someone to invite me over to Huldra.

(Or, alternatively, make a character on Huldra and be that someone. )

Huh. That's pretty clever actually.